Date: September 25^th

 Topic chosen: Analyzing students work (writing traits) Continued

The sessions we continued on the writing traits and using them to analyze student’s work was quite insightful. My first blog on the traits was just to express initial exposure and understanding of how it could be used. Time spent familiarizing myself with the traits allowed me to use them to scrutinize students' work. I can humbly say that based on what was done in the sessions, the analysis of my student's work prior to this exposure was nowhere close. Hence the reason, I am most appreciative of this new insight.

The practice run our facilitator used during the lesson for me was paramount to setting the corner stone of understanding for me. It enabled me to practice on my own, gain decisive feedback, and build even more comprehension in utilizing the writing traits.   

The knowledge and awareness gained from the lesson really guided me to intricately analyze students' work, synthesize the elements integrated into their writing, and determine what traits students assimilated well and which ones they ignored. This information will be most important in helping me to understand what my student's strengths and weaknesses are. These realizations can then be used to facilitate and tailor lessons to target the learning needs of the students in my class. Essentially, I would be able to accurately pinpoint the issues and address them with precision.     

The picture below illustrates what teachers "must" learn to do, identify and analyze students use of the writing traits. 

 

Date: November 13^th

 Topic chosen: Persuasive writing  

During our sessions this week we were introduced to persuasive writing, I was quite excited during the lesson remembering a persuasive essay I wrote a little over a year ago, “on why capital punishment should be reinstated”. It was quite the argument.   

Although I already possess some prerequisite experience with persuasive writing, I was quite pleased when our tutor shared even more persuasive strategies I could employ to sway my reader's perspective.

Time has dulled my memory a little on the inner intricacies of persuasive writing, but, after the lesson I have regained a clearer understanding of most of the details, for example; how to formulate the thesis statement, choosing a stance, the topic sentence, and supporting ideas (reasons to back up my stance and the overall structure of the persuasive piece.   

What stood out to me about the topic was the purpose/ motive for using persuasive writing in the first place. This writing style is aimed at attempting to change the readers mind, which is quite a fascinatingly feat to me, it is almost like psychological ammunition to ween readers over to your stance. Am curious to see what strategies students might employ to convince their readers.

 In my classroom, after introducing students to the concept of persuasive writing and its structure, we will continue by using a topic familiar to students, something relatable. Like, “video games at school”, my kids will definitely have a lot to say about that. More importantly, I will allow students to brainstorm interesting topics that will help the ideas to flow. After deciding on a favoured topic, students will choose their stance and start working on a thesis statement. Then, we will move on to organizing the topic sentences and supporting ideas. It’s going to be interesting to see what reasoning and convincing ideas students come up with to change their readers minds.   

 This short video shares the reasons for using persuasive writing.

 

 

 

 

Date: November 5^th  

Topic choice: 6+ 1 Traits of writing

During this week, we covered the 6 + 1 traits of writing, which can also be referred to as the V.I.P C.O.W.S., an acronym meaning: voice, ideas, presentation, conventions, organization, word choice, and sentence fluency. Thinking back to my earlier years in elementary school, I don’t recall covering many of the elements that make up the writing traits. However, thanks to my own fascination with books, I learned about many of these elements on my own and incorporated them into my own writing.

Now, I am aware of all the traits and mindful of how they facilitate a way to teach, model, and assess writing. One writing trait in particular that captured my attention was voice - that unique personal touch, the sense that a real person is speaking, the wit, the magic. While all the other writing traits are very important, I just think that voice is almost like the lifeblood of a piece of writing, especially in a narrative piece. Voice creates connection, drives emotions, captivates attention, and creates anticipation/excitement; it’s almost like the heartbeat of the writing. Voice creates that yearning to know more of the plot.

From my perspective, I admired the way this lesson was facilitated, where groups presented on the various writing traits with our tutor consolidating the concept at the very end. I believe the “top-notch” presentations done by the groups really helped me to understand the writing traits better, as well as approaches that could be used to implement them in the classroom.

I am most appreciative to all the groups for sharing such beautiful ideas on how teachers can integrate the writing trait. I particularly liked the presentation on word choice. I will definitely be guiding my students to building their synonym vocabulary and learning more about the similar words so they can use them more appropriately in expressions and writing, instead of overusing the same words.

Here is short video that delves more into one element of the writing trait, word choice. The video speaks to why it is important to choose words appropriately.